Functional Blood Analysis and Optimal Ranges
Going to a doctor with various chronic symptoms and health complaints just to go home without answers may sound familiar to you. It’s a common problem. According to your doctor, your tests are fine and everything is looking normal. Yet you are tired and weighed down by symptoms. Things are not feeling normal by any means.
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Unfortunately, many regular doctors are reluctant or unable to run many functional lab tests that may be needed to detect some underlying issues causing your symptoms. An even bigger problem is that instead of looking at what’s optimal, they are only looking at what’s normal.
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Normal is not the same as optimal. If your results lay on the very low end of the normal range, for example, it may mean that there is an imbalance or health issue we have to look at. Functional health practitioners, like myself, use functional blood analysis and other tests to look at optimal ranges to help recognize even subclinical health challenges and risk of health problems. Looking for optimal ranges may help us to identify the underlying issue behind your symptoms and help us recommend a lifestyle interventions to move anything out of balance back to the optimal range to help you regain your energy, health, and well-being naturally.
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In this article, I will discuss & explain the benefits of a Complete Blood Count (CBC) and a Complete Metabolic Panel (CMP) to check for potential underlying health issues and risk of disease. You will learn about the optimal functional health range for each health marker of these tests.
What Is Functional Blood Analysis
Have you ever been to a doctor with chronic complaints just to be told that your blood tests are normal and you are just fine? You are not alone. I see clients all the time who have seen their regular doctors. They ran some tests. Then they were told that everything was looking good. But why were they feeling so off then?
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Here is the thing, normal is not always optimal. Regular doctors look at the minimal number of tests. They also look at your blood markers differently than functional health practitioners do. If your results are on the low end of the ‘normal’ scale, they will likely declare that everything is great without further digging.
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But again, normally doesn’t mean optimal, ideal, or even healthy. Just because your blood test results may have not yet reached a state of a diagnosable serious disease, it doesn’t mean that everything is ‘great.'
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Being on the lower or higher end of normal or ‘just outside’ the normal range may indicate less than optimal function, underlying health issues, and risk of disease. Being off from optimal means that something needs attention to correct imbalances, deficiencies, inflammation, or other issues to regain balance, optimal function, and good health.
Functional Blood Analysis Insights
Using a functional blood analysis, functional medicine practitioners, can look beyond statistical averages. These tests tend to look at more factors than tests that conventional medical doctors are able to look at. Since conventional blood test analysis and interpretation can be inadequate at recognizing underlying health issues or noticing health problems or their risk early on.
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Functional blood analysis looks at broader reference ranges to help us identify subclinical problems before they can manifest into a full-blown, serious health issue.
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Functional blood analysis is a great tool for prevention, risk assessment, early diagnosis, and treatment. Functional blood analysis, however, is not the only way to diagnose acute health conditions or chronic diseases. Understanding your symptoms, health history, family history, diet, lifestyle, and emotional factors is always critical. We may also use stool testing and many other functional lab analysis.
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However, functional blood analysis is a test we, functional medicine practitioners, often use and recommend to look for subclinical health challenges that are impeding optimal function. It is the first step to identify gaps and problems and it’s incredibly helpful for prevention.
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In this article, I will discuss the benefits of a Complete Blood Count (CBC) and a Complete Metabolic Panel (CMP) to check for potential health issues and risk of disease. These are the most commonly run labs that even most general practitioners run on all their patients. However, I will go over the optimal ranges we are looking at a functional medicine office. You will also learn why I recommend the Complete Blood Analysis (CBA) blood test to look at these and other functional health markers.
Complete Blood Count
First, in terms of a functional blood analysis, let’s look at the markers of the Complete Blood Count, also known as CBC. The CBC is a test that even general practitioners run at conventional doctor’s offices during your annual physical or if you have health issues. It is a group of tests that looks at the cells that circulate in your blood. It looks at your red blood cells (RBCs), white blood cells (WBCs), platelets (PLTs), and other factors.
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The CBC can help to detect and diagnose various diseases and health conditions, including anemia, infections, and leukemia. It can also help to evaluate your overall health and when looking at functional health optimal ranges, it can help to detect your risk of disease, and health areas we need to address to optimize your health and well-being naturally.